No Subject

["Kurt Schoch" <KSCHOCH@indianapolis.olivellp.com>]

The "temporal spread" concept is a key one here.   If we let a process continue on its own, it will appear to become chaotic, but eventually that chaos itself becomes predictable. (My limited understanding of chaos or complexity theory leads me to that conclustion.)  Part of the problem is that, while predictable, the variation in the process would become much more than we could tolerate, or we would feel the need to "fix" and manage the process much faster than it would fix or manage itself.   A good example of human intervention that Ed notes is flood control; we sandbag and build dikes for our own protection, but, left on their own, flood waters are really part of the natural process.  Same for forest fires, at least those that occur naturally (e.g., lightning), not those caused by human carelessness.

Kurt Schoch
kurt_schoch@olivellp.com 
======================================================================